One of these things is not like the other one

Ian Livingston igrlivingston at gmail.com
Fri Nov 12 11:41:33 CST 2010


"Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you
give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in
judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends."


On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 7:32 AM, Michael Bailey
<michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
> David Morris wrote:
>
>> The problem here is that Rich is talking about a specific, real,
>> horrific, brutal and cold-blooded crime.  Everyone else is talking
>> about abstractions and ideals.
>
> that's true
>
>> Is there any question that Hayes is
>> guilty?  So, if there was anyone who deserved the death penalty,
>> wouldn't it be Hayes?
>>
>
> that's true.
>
>
> In general, however, I would want our "nation of laws, not men" to
> have as an abstract principle that the message we are trying to send
> is "we don't do that to people, 'round here"
>
> you could draw a distinction between killing and murder, and a lot of
> that thinking is reasonably popular and certainly better than having
> murder as a simple corporate tool like drug cartels have opted to do -
> at least when the State kills, it's girt about with solemnity and
> subject to some control...
>
> I'm not satisfied with that, it doesn't line up in a row of cherries
> like another bunch of thoughts I've read, or had, or heard:
> a) not stooping to somebody's level: there's a Better Way, and the two
> paths are diverging in a snowy wood and so forth
> b) Golden Rule
> c) two wrongs don't make a right
>  d) then there's the Benny Profane idea - putting forth effort to get
> inanimate things is simply crazy
>  -- somebody does a crime!  Let's get [usually] him [or sometimes her]!
> then once you've got them, hey, let's make them inanimate?  NO!
> Putting forth all that effort for Location, Surveillance, Detection -
> there's got to be something niftier to do than making that warm body a
> cold stiff one...pushing that eyeball across the threshold between
> receiving light to reflecting it...
>
>
> (to completely veer off-topic: this is just a specific case of the
> general principle of ahimsa, which is only one of the eightfold
> virtues, and although ahimsa is the one that I'm often moved to
> soapbox about (possibly because I'm overcorrecting for a violent and
> vengeful nature...) there are others:
> non-stealing
> non-hoarding
> zeal
> and some others...as well as the ten commandments, though some of
> those are kind of time-place specific and hence not quite as inspiring
> here-now...I was never IN Egypt, eg, (afair) nor do I possess an ox,
> although I have been known to covet my neighbor's ass at times...)
>
>
>
>
> --
> "Such regulations may, no doubt, be considered as in some respects a
> violation of natural liberty. But those exertions of the natural
> liberty of a few individuals, which might endanger the security of the
> whole society, are, and ought to be, restrained by the laws of all
> governments, of the most free as well as of the most despotical." -
> Adam Smith
>



-- 
"liber enim librum aperit."



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